Henry Has Mad Skills

When the kids were first sitting up, I noticed that we didn't have any balls in the house of an acceptable size for a baby. Babies need balls. That's Baby Raising 101.

I went to the sporting goods store and bought three tike size soccer balls: red for Henry and pink ones for Piper and Rosemary. We rolled the balls, when the kids got bigger we carried the balls, and we always take them outside with us. Mostly, I dribble the balls around while watching the kids, but the kids play with them some. Piper has kicked them a little. Rosemary not so much. Henry mainly carries the balls and tries to eat them.

Yesterday, the weather was pretty decent and we wanted to get outside. We were still gun-shy from the Thanksgiving trip, so we didn't want to drive a long way in the car. We decided to just go over to our neighborhood soccer fields and let the kids run loose. Of course, we took the balls.

I kicked the balls around with the kids, and then we put the kids out in the middle with some balls. First, Henry picked up the ball and walked around with it like he always does.


Then he just started dribbling it.








Heather tried to get me to grab the video camera, but I was just watching. While I was looking on, Heather got a good sequence of shots. For some reason, it didn't seem like that big of a deal that my 17 month old kid was controlling a soccer ball 2 months after he started walking. After I had a chance to process what I saw, it did seem pretty cool.

Maybe it was random kid behavior. He did it again after those shots, but for just a few kicks at a time. It could be that he is dribbling well just because he can't kick it out of his control yet. We'll see. I can still hope that the appearance of aptitude at 17 months will translate into skills in the 2012 Under 4 Tikes League - not that I'm counting.

Thanksgiving Trip

Yesterday, we took a trip to my folks' house in Pensacola for Thanksgiving dinner. Before that, the furthest we had been from home is two hours to Heather's parents' house. We've made that trip a few times, and it's been fine.

My parents live about four hours from us. I figured it would be a little harder, but the kids are pretty laid back, so I didn't think it would be that bad. I was mistaken. We left home after an early lunch, and at the two hour mark the kids woke up and flipped out. They didn't stop for the rest of the ride. If they would have started yelling before the half-way mark, I think we may have been eating take-out turkey from the Cracker Barrel at home.

We braved the storm of rage and made it to Pensacola to have some quality time with my parents and my sister's family. Then dinner and off to our hotel. My parents had a house full with my sisters' family, and I like my own space.

The space I chose on this trip was the Residence Inn. I picked it because it had a kitchen if we needed it and it was a suite. The other option close to my parents was the Crowne Plaza, which I think is nicer, but it's just one room. What I didn't know when I made our reservation is that Heather would want to put the kids in the bedroom with us, and because the Residence Inn has to cram in a kitchen and a living room, the bedroom was really small. That information would have come in handy when we passed up the other hotel for a suite.

Once you put three of these little tents around a bed in a smallish hotel room, it doesn't leave a lot of space.


The pea-pod tents are new adds to the baby gear portfolio. The good part about them is that they pack up to the size of a small pillow - including the little self-inflating mattress. The bad part is that when you put a toddler in there for the first time, they don't know they are in a cute little tent called a "pea-pod," and think they're in a cage. It took a little time to warm up to the tents, but once they settled in, the kids slept fine.

I slept horribly. Those kids are loud. I don't know how they sleep with each other. At home, they have a volume knob through the baby monitor. I should have argued the "put the kids in the other room" point a little bit. I was just worn down; I would have agreed to just about anything last night.

After we woke up this morning, we headed to the beach so the kids could see it for the first time. (Heather took some pictures). The weather was perfect for it. After the beach, we hit my parents' house again and then ate at McGuire's Irish Pub on the way out of town.

McGuire's has always been one of my favorite places to eat back home. It's pretty touristy, but I think I've been gone from Pensacola long enough to fall into that category anyway.










The poor light in the restaurant makes for poor quality pictures, but it's good for hiding the mess we can leave behind.

The drive back today was pretty much the same as the drive down. The first two hours were fine; then they let us have it. At least the group freak-outs are rare enough that we aren't used to them. We are very fortunate in that. We have easy kids - just as long as they aren't in a car seat for over 120 minutes.

Big Girl Seat and a New Do

After seeing Rosemary in her infant seat last week while Piper and Henry were enjoying big kid seats, I broke out the instruction manual on the big seat to see how to install it rear-facing for Rosemary. It was really easy. Now I feel like a crappy dad for not thinking of that in the first place.

Rosemary was loving her big kid seat on the way up to Heather's parents' house for Cousin Laramy's baptism.


This weekend, I also tried to fix Henry's hair to make him look less like Monster Tweety Bird. It's been a while since I used anything on my hair/head, but I found a jar of pomade in the back of my bathroom drawer. I figure if it's going to stick up, it should stick up right.


I gave him a fauxhawk for our Sunday afternoon walk. I would have taken a better pre-walk photo, but Piper was encouraging me to get the stroller moving.

I got a half-way decent mid-walk picture before it started getting dark.


. . . and some upside down pictures of the other ones:




I like Henry's look, but I think I need some product that isn't goopy wax. My hair was short when I used the pomade and Henry's is longer and very fine. It was really hard to wash out and it looks a little too wet. I need to find out what product all the cool toddlers are using and get some for my little man.

The Weekend in Pictures

I haven’t updated the blog in over a week. Maybe it’s because I got used to updating it only when someone was injured. Maybe it’s because I’ve been especially busy with work at night during my “TV / play on the computer time.” Equally as likely, it’s because the kids have been running us ragged.

This time last year we keep the kids on lockdown so they didn’t get RSV or some other respiratory illness. Last year it was easy to keep the babies cooped up when they didn’t know what was out there in the real world. Up until this past spring, they had only been at the hospital, the doctor’s office, and church, once, to get baptized. Now they know there’s a real world out there and they don’t care too much for not seeing it on a regular basis. We’ve decided to be as safe as we can, but still get out of the house. We've been busy keeping the kids busy.

Last weekend, I took a bunch of pictures of our outings, but didn't get a chance to upload them or put them in any sort of context. Now I have a ton of pictures. So this is the nearly context-free (belated) weekend in pictures:

Our pediatrician got in 100 doses of preservative free H1N1 last Thursday, so we reserved our three doses and hit the doctor first thing Friday morning.

Here are Piper and Henry in their new big kid cow print seats on the way to the doctor.


And Sweet Little Rosemary still in her infant seat.


Poor little Rosemary. I'm going to put a rear-facing big girl seat in for her, so at least she'll have a nice comfy seat until she weighs enough to go forward facing when she's 14.

. . . and the kids tearing apart the waiting room while waiting for the shot:






Fortunately, we didn't pick up swine flu waiting to get the shots to prevent swine flu.

On the way home from the doctor, we remembered that we needed milk for the day. Neither Heather nor I wanted to go home, then go to the store, bring back the milk, and then go to work. So we just took the kids the new Super Target for some milk. That place is so Super, they even have a cart built for three little kids.


In addition to being out of milk, we were dangerously low on glow worms.


Here's Henry riding in the cart:


Henry looks like a little kid, as opposed to a big baby, riding in the cart. He gives these little boy expressions too. My little buddy's growing up.

His large head and irregular hair growth look a bit odd. It makes him look a little like Tweety Bird in the episode where Tweety drank the Mr. Hyde juice that turned him into a monster.


But way way cuter than monster Tweety, in my opinion. I think Henry needs a little trim and some Rogaine. That would put him back to regular Tweety.

We hit Aldridge Gardens for some fresh air and sun on Saturday morning, followed by my favorite burger place, Baha Burger.






The kids loved the burgers and sweet potato fries. Rosemary even grabbed a to-go sweet potato fry for the road.

After Baha, we napped, watched football, and then had some friends over Saturday night.

Sunday we did a Costco run in the morning.



The most well behaved kid got to ride inside the cart, which turned out to be none of them. We just rotated kids who couldn't stay sitting.

We capped off the weekend with a pictureless walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon - followed by an evening of work on Sunday. Woo-hoo.

Time to do it all over again.

The Most Dangerous Toy Ever

The Step 2 Kangaroo Climber.


Wow. Those two kids on the box sure are having a good time. Our kids are certain to enjoy hours of injury free play on this bad boy.


What could go wrong? They certainly wouldn't fall off the deceptively narrow ledge. Nor would they take a header down the slide. The fine folks at Step 2, who make toys for little kids, would know better than to build something like that.

We set it up yesterday. I was so excited about the impending glee that I broke out the video camera to capture the moment.

First, Piper gave it a shot.



Henry made it up next - this time with a spotter nearby.



Lastly, the ever-conservative Rosemary conquered the Kangaroo Climber.

Maybe I was exaggerating about it being the most dangerous toy ever. In their effort to position the little blue door perfectly to catch the head or neck of a child falling from the platform, the designers at Step 2 neglected to line the bottom of the Kangaroo Climber in broken glass. That would be the only way to make it more dangerous.

The kids climbed up and fell off a couple more times and it became more than apparent that they weren't going somehow "get it" and stop tumbling off.

We decided to remove the slide and the platform before someone got hurt. The Kangaroo Climber is now just a box with a door.



Not quite what I had in mind. Maybe we'll give the kids a go with the slide and platform re-attached in a couple months, but I have a feeling that, by the time the kids are sure-footed enough not to fall off, they're going to be too big for the toy.

**The preceding videos feature stunts performed by professional stunt children; accordingly, no one should attempt to re-create or re-enact any activity performed herein. No children were harmed in the making of these videos - at least not badly.

Punched Myself in the Face, Etc.

As I was laying on the couch yesterday holding an icepack to my face from my injury incurred while putting together some new shelves I bought at our new SuperTarget, I was thinking I could use the time to type out a blog post if anything interesting had happened recently.

Aside from work, things have been pretty tame around here, other than that anyway.

New SuperTarget:

Since we moved into our neighborhood in 2003, we've had to rely on Walmart as our discount-retail-grocery-and-consumables-big-box-chain-store. I hate it. It's dirty and the people who work there are rude. Its only redeeming qualities are the price and selection that come with being a big discount store.

There's a new big discount store in the neighborhood now. The new SuperTarget opened up two weeks ago. I made it in there on Friday after work when I was looking for some shelves for Heather. It's like heaven. I was so excited I was doing S curves with my shopping cart in the big shiny unobstructed aisles. It even has a Starbucks in it. It's clean and roomy and the people are nice. It appears to have all the stuff we used to get at Walmart, sans dirt and bad attitudes.

I'm never going in that stupid Walmart again. I really don't know how it's going to stay in business with the SuperTarget right down the street. I estimate SuperTarget will make my life at least 1.5% better than it was before.

Shelves:

Heather has been couponing for about a month. She's been stocking up on non-perishables when she has a coupon and the item is on sale (it's called coupon stacking). This has resulted in the closet under our stairs looking like we were preparing for the apocalypse. Heather asked me to get some shelves so no one got hurt in a can avalanche.

I got these at SuperTarget for $19.99:


Thank you SuperTarget. I heart you.

Punched Myself in the Face:

While I was putting together said shelves purchased at said SuperTarget, I almost K.O.ed myself.

I put the shelves together and they didn't quite fit under the shelf that was already on the closet wall. Heather asked me to take the top shelf off to make it shorter.

The whole thing fits together without any screws, so you just shove the legs into the shelf and stack. Then, unless you foresee that your wife will want you to take it back apart, you pound on it really hard to make sure it won't fall apart.

I was trying to get one of the legs back out of the shelf and I guess I had my head too close to my hands while I was pulling. When the leg came loose from the shelf, I hit myself in the face with my fist and the shelf leg as hard as I can recall being hit in a while.

This is my nose after it stopped bleeding and I had put an icepack on it:


My unshaven upper lip and nose would be unsightly even it wasn't injured. Noses are really better observed from afar. You also can't capture the full scope of the injury in a picture. It's more on the inside - not, like, emotionally on the inside, but actually on the inside of my nose and deep inside my head.

This blow was minor on the scale of nose blows I've taken in my life, but it still hurt. Since college, I've been more careful in doing the things that resulted in countless nose bleeds and several broken noses. I went so long without taking a good hit to the nose I almost forgot what it felt like. It feels like no other injury. Somehow, your brain knows to numb your nose right after it takes a hard hit, so it takes a while to even feel it. It's an odd and bad type of pain. Being the one who inflicts the injury doesn't help much either. Pain and shame don't go well together.

After I took the top shelf off and hit myself, Heather decided she liked it better with the top shelf on and asked me to put it back together. Too bad she couldn't have just imagined what it might look like without the top shelf.

Headbanging is Rhythmic

About six months ago, we were concerned about the kids hitting their heads when they fell down. We asked their pediatrician, Dr. C., about it and he said: 1) it's no big deal unless they knock themselves out; and, 2) some kids hit their heads over and over on purpose, specifically stating, "it's rhythmic - it's like masturbation." What? Who? Where did that come from? Just in case we weren't clear, Dr. C. was vigorously nodding his head back and forth to simulate head banging when he said it. Heather and Brooke were both in the room, so I didn't think it was a good time to ask for elaboration. Lord knows what he would have said.

I've had the image of Dr. C. nodding his head back and forth saying that burned into my brain for six months. I think about it almost every day, sometimes several times a day. I don't mean to think about it; it just happens.

Then, a few weeks ago, just like Dr. C. said, Henry started banging his head rhythmically on his crib at night. I hear smack - smack - smack from his bedroom at night, over and over. We try to stop him, but he just starts back again. It's how he puts himself to sleep.

The loud noise in stereo from the room above and the baby monitor on my night stand is bad enough, but I lay awake wondering what Dr. C. meant. Was he trying to explain it by letting us know that a child's headbanging was like that to us? Did he mean it was like that to him? Surely he didn't mean the kids. I seriously have no idea - other than headbanging can be rhythmic. But he could have left out the other part entirely and I would have understood. It's very disturbing.

After a few too many nights of head smacking, we finally determined that the risks to Henry's head from the banging outweighed any possible risks of entanglement from crib bumpers at his age, so we put the bumpers in.


With the bumpers, we've noticed less bruises on Henry's head and the banging sounds a little softer. The smack is now more of a thud, which is nice.

Last night, though, while Henry was banging and I was staring at the ceiling thinking about that, Heather rolled over, half asleep, and said: "Man, Henry sure is going to town up there." I was awake for almost an hour after that.

Proof That Henry Can Walk

I was pleased to finally witness Henry walking last night. Then I got the video camera and he did it again.



That's legitimate locomotion. This myth is confirmed.

It's cliche to say "they grow up so fast," but it's true. They do. Maybe it seems to be going by more quickly because we have three babies turning into little children all at once. I don't think I would be any less shocked to see it if we only had one. It's just amazing.

Really - what have I accomplished in the last year while these three kids have gone from not being able to roll over to walking? I could have developed the ability to fly and it would be less impressive. And that's just what kids do. I knew it would probably happen, so I don't know why I'm so shocked.

Maybe I just lack foresight. One day it seems that the next big milestone isn't even on the horizon, and then it happens. Then it happens again and again with the other two kids. You would think I would come to expect it, but I am no less amazed the third time - every time.

I'm so proud of my little guy.

Henry Can Walk

We have three walkers!



OK, maybe the title is a little misleading. He can walk. I just have no proof of this new ability. This was the best I could do after bathtime on Sunday. Actually, I haven't really seen it either - at least not more than a few steps at a time. My sources say it's true. When Henry didn't know he was being watched, Heather and Brooke say he walked all the way across the nursery twice. I feel like the only person in the woods who missed a spotting of Bigfoot.

We believe Henry has been able to walk for about a week, but he won't do it while anyone is watching. It sounds crazy, but it seems my little buddy has a some performance anxiety. He just doesn't like an audience. That's cool - all in due time. Maybe he wants to master the art before the big unveil. I expect to be very impressed; just don't tell Henry.

Pumkinpalooza

Our Saturday trip to the Pumpkin Patch was an entertaining spectacle. I knew the part about the kids playing with pumpkins would be good, but the scope of the pumpkin enterprise was more than I expected.

I thought the pumpkin patch would be a grass field with some pumpkins and a hay ride that probably wouldn't be necessary to get to the pumpkins.

When we pulled up to the pumpkin patch and saw a full-on pumpkin festival, I was positively giddy:





In hindsight, I don't know why Heather would have suggested we drive 45 minutes to go to pile of pumpkins in a grass patch with nothing else. But really, what do 15 month old kids know? It's all fun. It's all new. But this was bigger and had a little more potential for fun than I had expected.

When we arrived on the main pumpkin picking grounds, it looked like it was about to rain, so we went straight to the pumpkin patch via the hay ride.


I was pretty happy to discover that the hay ride wasn't just a circle around a pumpkin patch. It was actually necessary for transportation from the barn compound, where we started, to the patch. I'm sure the kids wouldn't have noticed, but a necessary ride in a hay truck is more enjoyable to me than riding around unnecessarily in a circle and acting interested.

Even though I figured our hayride destination was likely to be a bunch of pumpkins unloaded into a grass plot, I was secretly hoping for a real pumpkin field.


Jackpot. We found real pumpkin plants in the field at the end of the hay ride. The pumpkins on the vines were a little picked over and were restocked with non-native pumpkins. But it was still neat to go pumpkin hunting in a real pumpkin patch (for the kids, of course).


One thing I didn't know about pumpkin plants, or at least these pumpkin plants, is that they have thorns. Lots of thorns. Probably more thorns than pumpkins even before the pumpkins were picked.



I can see how the idea of throwing a bunch of pumpkins in the grass and calling it a pumpkin patch caught on after seeing hordes of bloody children screaming and crying while entangled in actual pumpkin patches. Picking pumpkins in bushes full of thorns is an ill conceived idea, at least for little kids.

We kept the kids on the periphery of the patch and I went in a got pumpkins to bring out to the kids. Heather documented the pumpkin picking pretty thoroughly here.

After we got our pumpkins, we took the hay truck back to the barn compound. The kids seemed particularly pleased with their bounty.



There was a food barn next to the gift barn so I ordered us some burgers and fries. While we were sitting in the eating barn, next to the music barn, I noticed that the band in the music barn was playing a lot of Jesus music.


I like Jesus as much as the next guy, but the fire and brimstone anthems just seemed a little weighty for a day at the pumpkin patch. I wasn't really in the mood for contemplating my mortality or spirituality. If I would have had my druthers, I would have gone with some folksy looking people with banjos and washboards. Maybe a tub or a bucket on precussion. That seems more pumpkin pikiny to me.

We had about two or three Jesus songs, and then I heard:

. . . if we play it good and loud
She might get up and dance again.
Ooh, she put her beer down.
Here she comes . . .
honky tonk badonkadonk . . .
Got it goin' on
Like Donkey Kong . . .

And we saw this tenish year old girl who had been called up to dance to honkey tonk badonkadonk.



First we heard all about hell and then we punched our ticket to the place. Holy Lord. I didn't know how filthy country music could be. The singer followed that song up with a nice little country number about adultery. Then, like it never happened, right back to gospel. If I didn't see it, I wouldn't have believed it.